India’s Reliance to gradually reopen retail fuel outlets

India’s Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) has reopened 162 fuel stations in the western Indian state of Gujarat and another 36 in the south Indian state of Kerala over the last couple of months. Private refining and marketing companies in India have been forced to close down some retail outlets because of a lack of price parity between them and state-owned oil refiners, which receive a government subsidy for so-called “under recoveries”. RIL plans to gradually reopen all 1,400 retail outlets that it had been forced to shutter, a spokesman said. RIL is India’s largest refiner, with a total capacity of 1.24 million barrels per day (bpd) at its Jamnagar complex on the west coast. (August 11, 2010)